Re: [asterisk-biz] Plonking Tier 1 SIP Providers?

Going further, there are legitimate uses for being able to send "any" number.

With a Global X'ing TDM DS3 I was able to set the caller ID to anything I wanted, provided it was ten digits. 

The call center was a large scale direct response marketing company (read as inbound only). 

They decided to take on third parties for the third shift as well as to handle Spanish speaking callers. 

This was done via Trunk to Trunk with the outbound caller ID set to a linear GUID.  From that, we could match up recordings of specific calls as well as provide the ability to reconcile minutes, sales, and commissions, as well as the usual call center metrics such as abandoned calls, average queue time, talk time, and whatever else.

The above was a great tool and a totally legitimate use.  The door swung both ways, it kept the 3rd parties honest and served as a check and balance to our own CRM figures.

--
Thanks,
Steve Totaro
+18887771888 (Toll Free)
+12409381212 (Cell)

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Bill Michaelson <astbiz@bill.from.net> wrote:

Your application of the definition of legitimate is ill-considered.

Businesses sometimes heavily advertise their 800 #'s and the numbers become like trademarks.  In such cases, using any other number would be like obscuring their identity.

Thus, in the case of your telemarketing callers, the use of 800 #'s is probably more "legitimate" than using the DID of some obscure line in a call center.  It more openly identifies the entity on whose behalf the call is being placed.  Indeed, it enables you to do screening.

I receive calls from USAA, an insurance and investment service provider that are legitimate and not telemarketing calls.  I appreciate that they bear the correct 800- caller ID so that I can readily identify them.

I set my caller ID to properly identify my role when I place a call: personal or business, based on the business entity I am representing.  It is not fraudulent.  It is a courtesy extended to the called party, and might or might not be a toll-free number.

Jacob Suter wrote:

Is there *ever* a legitimate reason to do this?  I personally drop all calls from illegitimate CIDs (toll free #'s, area codes that don't exist, etc)  After a 45 day logging period, we discovered exactly 100% of our 'toll free' caller ID calls were for unsolicited telemarketing.  Of course, in over 75% of the calls, the 'legitimate caller ID' would have been somewhere in south/southeast Asia.  I know if I'm doing it, there must be a pile more doing it too...